Dumaguete to help flooded Bayawan, 2 towns

DUMAGUETE CITY, Philippines — The city government wanted to send financial aid to the towns of Basay and Sta Catalina and the city of Bayawan out of the LGU's 30 percent quick reaction fund from its 5 percent calamity fund, according to Mayor Manuel Sagarbarria, who has just returned from an official travel in Yeong Dong, South Korea. 

Sagarbarria said the amount, which needed the approval of the City Council, will be apportioned to Sta. Catalina, Bayawan and Basay depending on the extent of damage in each of  the affected LGUs.

The mayor said that, while Bayawan and neighboring areas were flooded, he was in full contact with the City Disaster Risk Reduction Management council and made sure that rescue units were available in case Banica River in Dumaguete overflows.

It can be recalled that Bayawan City sent P1 million in financial assistance to Dumaguete when the latter was battered by typhoon Sendong in the past.

Sagarbarria's plan came as the Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council, headed by Gov. Roel Degamo, was also expected to meet to decide how much assistance will be extended to the three LGUs, based on the extent of damage to crops and properties in those areas.

Degamo had earlier advised the affected areas to declare a state of calamity so they can use their respective calamity funds, as well as the Capitol and other LGUs with calamity funds still intact.

The governor meanwhile lamented over the decision of two mayors in Negros Oriental not to support the clamor of other LGUs to request the Office of the President to release the remaining half of the P961 million calamity fund which was intended to rehabilitate infrastructures damaged by Sendong, as well as for dredging, deepening and construction of river control and dikes in affected areas.

Degamo said they were Mayor Valente Yap of Bindoy town and Mayor Lenin Alviola of Bacong, whose towns were non-recipients of the fund.

Sagarbarria, for his part, said the city needed the other half of the P151 million fund for Dumaguete for the construction of a 3-kilometer river control project in Banica River. If not of the high dikes built there before with the first half of the fund, the downpour over the weekend could have cause the river to overflow also, added the mayor. — (FREEMAN)